NEW BRAUNFELS, Texas (AP) - Tommy Vaughn knows his clients may be distrustful when a court appoints him to handle their case. Without enough money to hire their own lawyer, defendants are often suspicious that court-appointed attorneys will provide a poor defense or just try to coerce a quick guilty plea.

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) - A northern Arizona police officer killed over the weekend was shot repeatedly at close range by a domestic violence suspect after calmly asking the man if he could pat him down for any weapons, authorities said Sunday.

DETROIT (AP) - Richard Bernstein officially joins the Michigan Supreme Court in a few days. But he's been working off the clock since November, preparing for 10 cases in an extraordinary way - memorizing the key points of every brief read to him by an aide.

SURABAYA, Indonesia (AP) - The search for a missing AirAsia jet carrying 162 people that disappeared more than 24 hours ago on a flight from Indonesia to Singapore expanded Monday with planes and ships from several countries taking part.

NEW YORK (AP) - A day after the funeral of one of two police officers gunned down in their patrol car, the city's police commissioner called Sunday for a "lot less rhetoric and a lot more dialogue" to defuse the tension between police officers and the population they protect.

DENVER (AP) - Chris Easterling was sick of relying on drug dealers in Minneapolis when he needed marijuana to help ease the pain of multiple sclerosis. They were flaky, often leaving the homeless man without the drug when he needed relief the most.

HAMILTON, Mont. (AP) - A 62-year-old Montana woman has been charged with felony intimidation and misdemeanor assault after her roommate accused the woman of running into her with a walker, causing her to fall.

JOHN DAY, Ore. (AP) - Logs are piled high in the yard of the Malheur Lumber Co. mill in this small town in northeastern Oregon, ready to be sawed into lumber. Steam pours out of the stacks. Trucks loaded with logs roll in.

Articles by Section - Nation

CHICAGO (AP) - With virtually no hard proof that medical marijuana benefits sick children, and evidence that it may harm developing brains, the drug should only be used for severely ill kids who have no other treatment option, the nation's most influential pediatricians group says in a new policy.

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) - President Barack Obama is proposing to designate the vast majority of Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as a wilderness area, including its potentially oil-rich coastal plain, drawing an angry response from top state elected officials who see it as a land grab by the federal government.

NEW YORK (AP) - A "potentially historic" storm could dump 2 to 3 feet of snow from northern New Jersey to southern Maine starting Monday, crippling a region that has largely been spared so far this winter, the National Weather Service said.

KEY WEST, Fla. (AP) - Millions of genetically modified mosquitoes could be released in the Florida Keys if British researchers win approval to use the bugs against two extremely painful viral diseases.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Anti-abortion activists attending a march in San Francisco on Saturday offered personal stories about how an abortion negatively affected their lives and expressed renewed hope that the procedure will be outlawed or at least further curtailed now that Republicans are back in control of Congress.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Bowing to privacy concerns, the Obama administration reversed itself Friday, scaling back the release of consumers' personal information from the government's health insurance website to private companies with a commercial interest in the data.

PHOENIX (AP) - A surveillance video that captured the killing of a Phoenix-area convenience store clerk shows the suspect calmly walking behind the counter after pulling the trigger, stepping over the fallen victim and grabbing several packs of Marlboros before slowly exiting.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - A Portland thief trying to make a getaway Friday had a hard time seeing his way clear, given that 53-year-old grandmother Tammy Elliott was on the hood of his car, hanging on to the windshield wipers and screaming at him to give back her purse.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Box's shares soared 66 percent in their stock market debut Friday despite the online storage provider's decade-long history of losses, a showing that may encourage more unprofitable technology startups to go public this year.

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) - Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah, the powerful U.S. ally who fought against al-Qaida and sought to modernize the ultraconservative Muslim kingdom, including by nudging open greater opportunities for women, has died. He was 90.